


The Baptism of Erik

by TempleCloud



Series: Journey to Camelot [9]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Arthurian Mythology, Henry IV - Shakespeare, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: (Or is it?), Anachronistic, Friendship, Gen, Poetry, Religion, Singing, Suicide, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:55:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempleCloud/pseuds/TempleCloud
Summary: Erik has decided to be baptised.  But no-one had foreseen what he planned to do next...
Relationships: Erik | Phantom of the Opera & Sir John Falstaff
Series: Journey to Camelot [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871695
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Summer lasted a long time that year. The leaves turned red or gold, and the brambles put out more and more sweet blackberries long after the first apples and pears of the autumn were ripe, but the weather stayed warm, and usually dry and sunny, until well into October. This was just as well, because we were still travelling around trying to find a priest who was willing to baptise Erik. 

Most of the priests were just startled at being asked to christen a grown man who wanted to have a centaur as his godfather. They were even more alarmed when Erik explained that Cheiron had more right than most people to be someone’s godfather because he actually was a god, and that Cheiron, like Jesus, had already died and been resurrected, and so had Erik, and so had I. One hermit, who lived in a hut of woven sticks in the middle of a forest, rushed to his kitchen-garden and confronted us with a bulb of garlic, at which Erik said, ‘Oh, _thank you_! It’s so hard to get hold of this here; the English simply have no _idea_ about making food taste interesting,’ and nonchalantly peeled a clove of garlic and began to munch.

‘It’d be better gently sautéed in butter, of course,’ I added, taking a small clove. ‘It always makes my breath smell, but I’ll forgo kisses for this finest member of the allium family. Cheiron, is there any chance of having chicken in a creamy mushroom and garlic sauce for dinner?’

‘Well, you _could_ , I suppose, but raw vegetables are much more nutritious,’ said Cheiron. ‘It won’t taste too sharp chopped up in a salad. Thank you, Father, it’s very kind of you to share your herbs with us.’

‘You wouldn’t have any whole dried chillis, cardamon pods and cinnamon sticks, would you?’ added Erik.

The hermit ducked into his hut and fetched a small wooden crucifix, and held it out at us. ‘Does _this_ mean anything to you?’ he demanded.

Erik bowed his head. ‘It means this,’ he said:

‘O younge fresshe folkes, he or she,

In which that love up groweth with your age,

Repaireth home fro worldly vanity,

And of your heart up casteth the visage

To thilke God that after his image

You made; and thinketh all n’is but a fair,

This world, that passeth soon as flowers fair.

‘And loveth Him which that right for love

Upon a cross, our soules for to beye,

First starf, and rose, and sit in Heaven above;

For He n’ill falsen no wight, dare I say,

That wol his heart all wholly on him lay.

And syn He best to love is, and most meek,

What needeth feigned loves for to seek?’

‘Is that Chaucer?’ asked Andrew. ‘It sounds like _Troilus and Criseyde_ or something.’

‘I never read to the end of that one,’ I said. ‘I told Geoff it was no use writing a poem about a love affair if you’ve got to read through four thousand lines of the hero soliloquising about predestination and the heroine agonising about whether she wants a relationship before they wind up in bed together. Mind you, I think I might have inspired his portrait of Pandarus as friend, mentor, and archetypal Bad Influence on the young Troilus. I gave him some of the stories for _The Canterbury Tales_ , too.’

‘That’s not the point!’ said Erik. ‘Can’t you see that when we were pining away because the people we loved either didn’t love us, or started off loving us but then betrayed us, or couldn’t give us _all_ their love because they loved someone else more – well, all that time, Jesus loved us all as passionately as if each one of us was the only one he cared about and died for! And if we didn’t manage to learn that in our old lives, and we’ve learnt it after we died, like Troilus, the important thing is that we _have_ learnt it! We’re not undead; we’re just even more born-again than most Christians.’

Arthur looked the hermit calmly in the eye. ‘Do you honestly think this man isn’t saved?’ he asked.

‘He certainly sounds like a Christian,’ said the hermit, ‘but I think I’ll need time to meditate and pray for guidance before I know what’s the right thing to do. We’ve had a lot of strange occurrences in this forest; several of the knights on the Grail quest were tricked by demons disguised as maidens or priests.’

‘Well, there you are then!’ I said. ‘The devil can disguise himself as an angel of light, so he’s hardly going to bother to disguise himself as a scrawny little man with sunken cheeks and mad yellow eyes, chewing raw garlic and quoting random bits of _Troilus and Criseyde_ and _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ , is he? Who could possibly be seduced by a demon that chose to look like Erik?’

‘Unless it’s a fiendishly clever double-bluff,’ added Malvolio.

‘Would you mind coming back tomorrow?’ said the hermit. ‘I’ll fast and pray about this, and unless God tells me very clearly _not_ to have anything to do with you, tomorrow afternoon we’ll talk about it.’

‘I think that’s reasonable,’ said Arthur. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow, then.’

‘We ought to fast, too,’ said Erik, as we walked away.

‘Are you mad?’ I said. ‘We’re on short enough rations as it is, and you’ve got about as much flesh on you as a daddy-long-legs. If we miss dinner, there’ll be nothing left of you by tomorrow for the hermit to baptise.’

‘It’s not a bad idea, usually,’ said Cheiron, ‘but seriously, Erik, you’ve made yourself ill with refusing to eat, so many times that you’re almost addicted to it. I think it’d be more of a discipline for you to go on eating regular meals even when you don’t feel like it.’

‘Well, maybe, but only bread,’ said Erik. ‘And I think we ought to keep vigil all night.’

‘Like taming a hawk,’ said Arthur. ‘All right, then. And if it helps, I’ll fast on your behalf, because you can’t.’

‘Me too,’ said Andrew. ‘Can you teach me your requiem mass, Erik?’

‘Personally, I think it’s all outworn superstition,’ said Malvolio, ‘but I’ll fast anyway, because _I’m_ not a compulsive glutton who’s incapable of thinking of anything except the menu for the next meal.’

‘If I wasn’t a Knight of the Round Table and sworn to be gentle with unarmed commoners, I’d thrash you for saying that,’ I growled.

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ sneered Malvolio.

‘Want to bet?’

‘No, because I’m not a gambler either. I’m not much addicted to vice.’

‘ _What_?’ I said. ‘You’ve got enough vices to equip a carpentry class! It’s just that they’re mostly ones like pride and envy that don’t make you any friends.’

‘Knock it off, both of you,’ said Cheiron. ‘What kind of example do you think you’re setting to Erik? What sort of Christians do you call yourselves?’

‘Very imperfect ones, who need more of God’s grace than most, and have all the more reason to love Him for forgiving us so much,’ I said.

Cheiron laughed. ‘In which case, you’d better forgive each other.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Malvolio, I forgive you for being perpetually rude, arrogant, self-centred, and impossible to live with.’

‘Likewise,’ said Malvolio.

‘And, Erik, I’ll fast for you as well, just this once,’ I said. ‘But only for tonight, and only if we can have a decent breakfast in the morning.’

‘Thank you,’ said Erik. ‘If you’re sure you don’t mind?’

‘Of course I mind! You know I don’t think about anything except the next meal! But, for you, my friend – anything!

So we passed the night in prayer, hunger, and Erik’s ethereal voice guiding Andrew’s reedy one in singing ‘[ _Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae; dies illa, dies magna et amara valde._](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27faure%27s+requiem%27+%27dies+irae%27%23&docid=607991872931694518&mid=52773E5FA178EF11EAEC52773E5FA178EF11EAEC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE)’ 

‘This is a bit happy-clappy, isn’t it?’ remarked Andrew. 

‘It’s Latin for “That day, the day of wrath, of calamity, of misery; that day, the great day and most bitter,”’ said Erik.

Andrew pondered this. ‘If it’s Latin, does that mean it’s not happy-clappy?’

‘It means the priests don’t want you to understand what you’re singing,’ said Malvolio. ‘Though as you barely understand English, it hardly matters.’

After breakfast at dawn, the rest of us were more than ready to fall asleep until it was time to see the hermit, but Erik was bubbling with energy and excitement. ‘I think I’d better have a Biblical name, if I’m going to be christened,’ he announced. ‘After all, people in the Bible sometimes changed their names when they turned to God, like Jacob becoming Israel, and Simon becoming Peter. So, in future I’m going to call myself Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, which is Hebrew for “quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil”. I don’t know why people are so ridiculously conservative in the names they give their children. Take the English ruling classes, for example. Do you realise, for four hundred years, from the Plantagenet dynasty to the Tudors, apart from one solitary king called John who was so useless that nobody wanted another one, England had sixteen kings with only three names between them? All you had were waves of Henrys alternating with waves of Edwards, with the occasional Richard thrown in for variety. Now, I’m not denying that some of them were mighty warriors, but can you imagine how much more a king might have achieved if, just for once, his parents had had the originality to name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz?’

‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘For one thing, it’s too fiddly to say, so if you were a king named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, you’d probably be called by a nickname, like Mash or something. Which is good when you’re hanging out with your mates; not so good when you’re making a rabble-rousing speech before leading your troops into battle. Secondly, nobody would want to write a play about a king called Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, because it wouldn’t fit into an iambic pentameter.’

‘So? Write an opera instead, and stretch it out for as many bars as you want!’ retorted Erik. ‘Like this: _Who is he-e, that dares sta-and agai-ainst me? This is I-I-I, Ma-a-aher Shala-a-al Ha-a-ash BAZ!_ No, on second thoughts, I’ll stick with Erik,’ he added. ‘But I’ll need a surname, too, and I don’t even know my family name.’

‘Not many people here bother with surnames,’ said Arthur. ‘But if they do, they’re more descriptions than family names, like Agravain á la Dure Main: Agravain with the Hard Hand.’

‘So I could be Erik Phantom?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Cheiron. ‘You’re not a ghost; the point of baptism is that you’re beginning a new life.’

‘Erik Angel, then?’

‘Well, that’s a bit better, but you’re not an angel,’ said Cheiron. ‘You’re a man of flesh and blood, even if you don’t have as much of either as I’d like to see.’

‘Erik Lazarus,’ I offered.

‘Erik Catseye!’ returned Erik.

‘Erik Mothworm!’ I called.

‘You know,’ Cheiron said, ‘sometimes godchildren are named after their godfathers. Now, my name means Hand, so how do you feel about being Erik Hand?’

‘Erik Hand,’ repeated Erik, flexing his long, attenuated fingers, one of them still wearing his nearly-wedding ring. ‘Hands that can juggle torches and turn them into rainbow-coloured silk handkerchiefs, or strangle an armed warrior with a simple piece of cord. Hands that can play any instrument, or write an opera, or pick the Opera House manager’s inside waistcoat pocket. Hands that can fashion pretty mechanical toys or ingenious torture chambers. Yes. I’d like to be Erik Hand.’

‘But you’re not going to kill or steal or torture people any more, are you?’ said Cheiron, softly but with a warning note in his voice.

‘No, of course not! I promised I wouldn’t. But I know that I could.’


	2. Chapter 2

When we visited the hermit, he said that he hadn’t received any miraculous vision, but that God had reminded him of all the Bible stories of people being raised from the dead, and of God’s words to Peter: ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ He asked the rest of us to move out of earshot while he talked with Erik in private in his hut, and then came to fetch Cheiron and talked with both of them, and finally came and told all of us there was no reason why Erik shouldn’t be baptised more or less immediately. ‘But I understand you’d like to be baptised in a river, rather than just sprinkled with water?’ he added.

‘Yes, please, if that’s not a problem,’ said Erik meekly.

‘Well, there aren’t many very big rivers nearby – or at least, they only get deep at high tide near the river-mouth, and then they tend to be muddy – but there’s a path down to a beach only a mile or so away, and there’s a spring in the rocks nearby where you could rinse the salt water off afterwards, and then we could change into dry clothes and have a picnic on the beach. I know it sounds rather silly, having a symbolic bath followed by another one...’

‘No, it makes sense,’ said Erik. ‘First you bathe yourself in tears of repentance, and then God wipes your tears away. Yes, I think that would be best.’

We arranged to come back at noon the next day, so that the hermit could lead us down to the sea. In the meantime, he gave us directions for a farm a few miles away where we could buy provisions for a feast after the baptism. I should probably have noticed how quiet Erik was for the rest of the day, but I was just relieved that he’d stopped prattling on about changing his name to Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 

For once Cheiron wasn’t nagging me about eating in moderation, so I spent most of the journey to the farm discussing the menu with him. Erik might assume, like most foreigners, that the English were culinary barbarians, but did he even know the difference between Cheddar and Cheshire cheese, let alone Stilton and Shropshire blue? Could he have discussed the relative merits of plate apple pies made with short-crust pastry above and below, served cold and cut into wedges, against apple and blackberry crumble just out of the oven with proper custard? So far he’d only tasted what we could cook in one pot over a campfire, but if the hermit had an oven we could borrow – well, Cheiron couldn’t remember having seen an oven in the hut, but if not, he knew how to make one out of a metal box buried in the embers of a fire. 

At any rate, we wanted Erik to be surprised at how edible everything was, so it didn’t matter that he wasn’t listening to our conversation, and seemed lost in a reverie, muttering, ‘What? Oh, whichever you prefer,’ if anyone asked him a question. He spent most of the evening writing a poem, which he wouldn’t let anyone read. I only found it later on, after everything had happened. It was about Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane before the soldiers came to arrest him:

Look, dad, if you can take this cup away,

Don’t tear me out of you to die alone.

I know your heart will scream in pain today,

And so my agony’s not all my own.

But, all the same, because I know we’re one,

I can’t refuse you; may your will be done.

My dad – but do you hear a word I say?

I know you do, and yet I feel alone.

My friends are all asleep. Why can’t they stay

For just an hour? My heart is still as stone.

The turning of the world conceals the sun,

But still I love you. May your will be done.

So be it, then! If there’s no other way,

I’ll suffer, die, be placed beneath the stone –

Be lost to God. And yet, though all betray –

Friends, priests, and God – I’ll fight for God, alone.

No time for talk; I’ve battles to be won.

The hour has come, so – may your will be done!

On the day, as we trooped down to the beach for the ceremony, Arthur dropped back to have a quiet word with me. ‘Now, I know it’s only going to be the six of us and the hermit, not a big church service, but this is still a very solemn occasion, so I need you to be on your best behaviour. We’ll all join in when the hermit asks us to pray for Erik, and when we’re singing, but do you promise not to interrupt, heckle or ad-lib?’

‘Really, Arthur, do you honestly think I would?’

‘Yes. You know you get impatient if you stop being the centre of attention for more than about ten seconds. You’re pretty much like every other knight I’ve ever met, except that most of them try to get noticed by great feats in battle or going on quests or being very good at sports like jousting and tournaments, and you achieve it just by talking.’

‘Everyone should do what they’re best at,’ I said. ‘And as I’m not very good at great feats in battle, I have to work harder at being noticeable. I’m like the Coarse Actor with only one line, whose character doesn’t even have a name, but who keeps reminding himself that he must be pretty important to be First Citizen of a big place like Rome.’

‘I know,’ said Arthur. ‘But this is a scene between Erik and God – even the hermit and Cheiron are just supporting actors, and the rest of us can stick to the script. But after all, it’s not as if we have to compete for God’s attention, because he always sees each of us, and he’s the only one whose opinion matters. He won’t stop noticing you just because you keep your mouth shut.’

All this would have been fair enough if Erik had made the most of his role. After all, he had built a theatre, lived in its basement for years, made secret corridors so that he could sneak up to his private box to peep at performances from behind the curtains, pulled strings to get his _protegée_ the star roles, and, some said, even committed murder in revenge when his favourite usher was fired. (Erik insisted that ‘the thing with the chandelier’ was, for once, a pure accident and nothing to do with him, but that he’d spent so long building up his image as the Phantom that people blamed him for everything. But all the same, he said, given that a chandelier isn’t exactly a precision weapon, it was fortuitous that the only person actually killed in the accident was the new usher who had replaced the one he used to buy sweets for.)

But now that Erik was the star himself, he was suddenly shy. He wouldn’t sing any of the music he had composed, or even suggest hymns for us to sing (in the end, Andrew had chosen ‘[Keep Me Travelling Along With You](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27keep+me+travelling+along+with+you%27&docid=608002666179724913&mid=5201D8D4285A6F0078B75201D8D4285A6F0078B7&view=detail&FORM=VIRE)’ and Malvolio had chosen ‘[To Be A Pilgrim](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=John+Bunyan+Hymn&&view=detail&mid=45FB99D4F9E7DC04A30745FB99D4F9E7DC04A307&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3DJohn%2BBunyan%2BHymn%26FORM%3DVDMHRS)’, as they seemed appropriate enough for our group, and Erik had nodded and said, ‘Whichever you like.’) He didn’t make a speech describing his past life and explaining why he had become a Christian. All he would do was recite the Creed (along with all of us), and then repeat after the hermit that he turned to Christ, that he repented of his sins, and that he renounced evil. And then Erik and the hermit walked out over the rippled sand and into the sea until they were up to their chests, and the hermit said, ‘Erik Hand, I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,’ and pushed Erik underwater.

There was a pause, and then the hermit ducked underwater himself and started frantically searching for Erik, and the rest of us ran down the beach to help him. ‘Can any of you swim?’ he called. ‘The currents round here are very strong, even in shallow water...’

‘Hands up, everyone who can swim,’ said Arthur. Only Cheiron and Arthur himself raised their hands, and Cheiron was already up to his withers in the sea. ‘Can someone help me off with my armour?’ Arthur asked. I helped him disarm, and Arthur stripped off most of his clothes (including a grey object that must, long ago, have been a lady’s fluffy pink scarf with _Honi soit qui mal y pense_ embroidered on it), and, barefoot and in his boxer shorts, followed Cheiron into the sea. ‘Take that junk back above the high-tide line,’ he called. ‘And everyone else, keep above the high-tide line and light a fire. Put the kettle on!’

Malvolio, Andrew, and the hermit began carrying the pile of armour and clothes up the beach. I tramped along the edge of the sea, sweeping my gaze back and forth between the white-maned water and the long stretch of coastline.

‘I said _get back!_ ’ said Arthur. ‘If you can’t swim, you’re only putting yourself in danger for nothing.’

‘I can still search along the shoreline. Erik might get washed up somewhere, or if I spot him in the sea, I can point him out to you.’

‘All right,’ sighed Arthur, ‘but promise me you’ll retreat before the tide comes in. I don’t want you getting cut off.’

I put on my most pathetic voice. ‘Let me go with you! I can flee! I can flee perfectly!’

Arthur laughed. ‘All right, I can believe that. Come on, then!’

I had to search for a long time before I found what I was looking for. The expanse of sand turned to gravel, and then stones: not smooth, sea-rounded pebbles, but jagged chips of stone that the storms must have knocked off the cliffs round the coast. I’d kept my boots on, and so had Erik, but if Arthur tried coming up here in bare feet, he’d be lame for days. The sky was turning slate-grey, and I’d lost sight of Arthur, while Cheiron had swum in the opposite direction from the beach where we were based. I was several sets of bays and promontories away from that beach, and there was no longer anything that could leave footprints. And finally – ah, yes, there was a cave in the rock-face, carved out by the waves.

I went in to investigate. There were boulders strewn about the cave-mouth, and further in it was almost too dark to see, but there was a little light from a crack in the rocks, glimmering on a pool of water left by the retreating tide. Erik’s body was lying in the pool, and there was just enough light for me to see a trickle of something dark coming out of his mouth. He was terribly still.

‘Erik,’ I said sternly, ‘stop messing about. We can’t have the picnic until you come back.’

No answer.

‘If you want to hear a requiem mass or a funeral oration, you can come and perform them yourself. Nobody else has the voice for it.’

Silence, only broken by the cry of the seagulls and the crashing of the waves.


	3. Chapter 3

Well, if I had to bring Erik’s body back for burial, I’d better tidy it up first. I bent down and gently removed the wisp of seaweed caught in his mouth.

At once Erik was on his feet, up to his knees in water and with his fists clenched. ‘You bastard, you could have drowned me!’

‘No, because I knew you’d get up as soon as I took the tube you were breathing through. You’ve boasted often enough about how you used to lurk under the surface of your private lake under the Opera House, waiting to drown trespassers.’

‘I could have been unconscious,’ protested Erik. ‘Or I could have been really drowned. Was it _very_ obvious that I was faking?’

‘No, it was good stagecraft,’ I said soothingly. ‘You were hidden behind the rocks, so nobody would see if you sneezed or moved about, and if they came closer, it would look as though the water was rippled by the breeze. Except that, of course, nobody would come to search the cave, because the tide hasn’t come up this far yet, so it couldn’t have washed you into the cave. But I _know_ you, Erik Hand, and I know you’re even more of a slippery rogue than I was. We’re as alike as two peas: I’m the sweet juicy one in the middle of the pod, and you’re the little worm-eaten one tucked into the pointy end. And considering we’ve both had to save our lives by playing dead, I can spot the signs. What I want to know is: why are you pretending to be dead just _now_? If you keep on doing it just as a joke, how do you expect to trick anyone next time your life depends on it?’

‘But we both did die, in the end,’ said Erik. ‘There’s a right time to die. If you really had got killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury, then the Prince could have been honestly sad about your death without having to know that one day he’d banish you and you’d die of sorrow. And when Christine had agreed to marry me, I had to die so that she was free to marry her boyfriend instead.’

‘No, you didn’t! You could have given them your blessing and played the organ at their wedding. You just thought a tragic ending was more romantic.’

‘Well, anyway, I died and came here, and now that I’ve been baptised, it’s time for me to die again,’ said Erik. ‘That way, Arthur and Cheiron are rid of me for good, and they can be happy that I’d been baptised just before the waves unfortunately swept me away, so that I couldn’t have had the opportunity to commit any more sins and will therefore go straight to Heaven..’

‘Of course they’re not happy about it! They’re swimming around trying to rescue you, and they might get drowned themselves for your sake. And if you ever dare mess around like this again, I’ll...’ (I tried to think of the most terrible threat I could) ‘I’ll never play Insults with you again. If you do ridiculous things like this, it means I have to be the sensible, responsible one, and I wasn’t written for that role.’

‘Sensible?’ repeated Erik. ‘Was it sensible to come looking for me when you didn’t have to? What is sensible? Always thinking of your own safety first. Who is sensible? A fireman who doesn’t dare go near a fire. What is the sensible thing to do for a drowning man? Walk away before anyone sees that you saw him. Why? If you have to give him CPR, what will he do? Sue you for breaking his ribs. If he drowns, can he sue you? No. Is being sensible the same as cowardice? Yes. Who is the most famous coward in literature? You are. Coming to find me was loving, but it wasn’t sensible or in character.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll step a little out of character for you,’ I said, ‘but don’t expect me to make a habit of it. Anyway, I’m not the only one. Everyone’s sick with worry about you.’

‘What, _everyone_? What about Malvolio?’

But at this point we heard Malvolio’s voice, above our heads and a long way in the distance: ‘Erik? Sir John? Can you hear me?’ And then Andrew, close to tears: ‘Please don’t be drowned!’

‘You see? Shouting their lungs out for your sake,’ I said. ‘If we’re lucky, Malvolio might lose his voice and we’ll get some peace for a while.’

‘Why’s Malvolio looking for me? He doesn’t even like me!’

‘Well, of course not; he doesn’t like anyone. But, unlike us, he’s an honest man who doesn’t desert his companions. You’d better sing out to let him know you’re safe.’

Erik roared out in a deep baritone, so loudly it almost shook the cave: ‘[ _Ego! Ego! Ego sum abbas, sum abbas, sum abbas Cucaniensis!_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27carmina+burana%27+%27ego+sum+abbas%27&docid=607999045488216161&mid=8FEB8806D16B26986EDD8FEB8806D16B26986EDD&view=detail&FORM=VIRE)’

I waited for the echoes to die down. ‘They’ll have heard that, anyway. Now for one we both know, so they know we’re both alive. How about “[Pastime with Good Company](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YcDFOu6qWw)”?’ So we sang together:

‘Pastime with good company

I love and shall until I die.

Grudge who lust, but none deny,

So God be pleased, thus live will I.

For my pastance: hunt, sing, and dance;

My heart is set.

All goodly sport, for my comfort,

Who shall me let?’

‘Talking of sport,’ added Erik, ‘do you prefer rock-climbing or swimming?’

‘No, just drinking and sex, but Cheiron won’t let me have any fun.’

‘It may have escaped your notice,’ said Erik in his most sarcastic tones, ‘but the tide’s coming in, and it completely covers this beach at high tide. If we get out now, I’ve got time to start climbing the cliff, but do you think you could make it?’

I’d never climbed a cliff in my life, but, after all, I was a lot fitter now than I had been five months ago, or even a dozen years ago for that matter. I stepped outside, followed by Erik, and cast a critical eye up the rock-face. It was sheer rock, mostly hard and shiny and completely without handholds or footholds, apart from a few places where the rock was flaking off. In spite of this, there was seaweed managing to grow out of the rock up to about waist-height, obviously waiting for the next high tide. The water was already lapping near the cave-mouth.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘What do you think I am: a gecko?’

‘So, if I climb up and you swim back to the beach where we came down, I’ll walk through the woods and meet you back there,’ said Erik.

‘I can’t swim, either.’

‘So why did you come looking for me if you can’t even swim? Anyway, how can you not know how to swim? You survived when they threw you in the Thames.’

‘Only just. Anyway, that was shallow enough to wade, and I couldn’t die then because it was only Act Three. But can’t you _see_ that I’m too heavy to float?’

‘It’s nothing to do with weight, you idiot!’ snapped Erik. ‘This pebble,’ (here he picked up the smallest he could find, about the size of a hazelnut) ‘doesn’t weigh nearly as much as a tree or a ship, does it? But it sinks,’ (he tossed it into the water) ‘and trees and ships go on floating, don’t they? Because it’s a matter of density, not weight, and while you can be rash, gullible, ridiculously trusting, pig-headedly stubborn in going on doing something when you know it’s a bad idea, and too pleased with your cleverness in putting one over on someone else to realise you might be the one being conned, I don’t think I’d call you _dense_ exactly. You’ve got easily enough blubber to buoy you up, and it’s easier to float in salt water anyway. I’ll hang onto you and steer us both into harbour. Are you ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ I muttered, as we stepped out into the sea. The water was so cold I could hardly believe it was still liquid, even before a great wave came crashing over my head and swallowed me up. I seemed to have drunk half the sea, and while the half outside me was still freezing, the half inside was so salty that it scorched my mouth and throat, and someone was dragging me by my shirt collar, and of course that must be Erik, and I’d put my life in the hands of a man who was nearly as expert at drowning people as he was at strangling them, and was now in the perfect position to do both, and the blood was pounding in my ears...

And I was above the water again, coughing and spluttering. ‘Now kick!’ shouted Erik. ‘Kick your legs as hard as you can!’

So I kicked the water, and Erik kicked alongside me, and steered by sculling with the hand that wasn’t holding my head above the water, and for a long time we thrashed on, with dark grey water below us and a dark grey sky above us and rain pelting down on us, and the sound of waves crashing on rocks to one side of us and nothing but the horizon on the other. Nothing changed, except that we grew colder and more exhausted and too stiff to swim at all, until Erik said, ‘Over there! Swim for the shore!’ And now the grey waves were on our side, and helped to roll us ashore until we were able to crawl up the beach and lie on the wet sand, recovering. It was still pouring with rain, so there was no chance of drying out. The hermit, who had stayed to look out for anyone who made it back, had built a fire out of driftwood, but the rain had drowned it before it had a chance to live, and our precious array of cakes, pies, and cheese and biscuits was reduced to gruel.

‘Thank God you’re alive!’ said the hermit. ‘How do you feel?’

I checked how I felt. Freezing cold, wet, exhausted and aching, yes, obviously, but somehow, now that it was over, I felt that I’d had the time of my life. I could see why dogs leap into freezing cold rivers, and then bound up onto the bank and shake the water out of their fur before jumping in again. ‘That was awesome!’ I said. ‘I want to learn to swim. But not until the weather gets its act together.’

Erik struck up _Ego Sum Abbas_ again, to let the others know where we’d got to, followed by [_O Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi_](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27carmina+burana%27+%27o+fortuna%2c+imperatrix+mundi%27&view=detail&mid=639CFCB8CBEA884D92CF639CFCB8CBEA884D92CF&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3d%2527carmina%2bburana%2527%2b%2527o%2bfortuna%252C%2bimperatrix%2bmundi%2527%26qs%3dn%26form%3dQBRE%26sp%3d-1%26pq%3d%2527carmina%2bburana%2527%2b%2527o%2bfortuna%252C%2bimperatrix%2bmundi%2527%26sc%3d0-46%26sk%3d%26cvid%3d5CFA8ED173C64BE298E386F4927B9C2C), and then [_Pastime With Good Company_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YcDFOu6qWw). My voice was rusted with salt water, but I joined in as well as I could, and by the time we’d reached the last verse, Cheiron was galloping up through the waves, joining in:

‘Company with honesty

Is virtue, vices to flee.

Company is good or ill,

But every man hath his free will.

The best ensue, the worst eschew,

My mind shall be:

Virtue to use, vice to refuse;

Thus shall I use me.’

‘Shall we have an animal song next?’ Cheiron suggested. He knew a series of comic songs about animals: a [hippopotamus courting his hippopotama](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27flanders+and+swann%27+hippopotamus&docid=608001412059040164&mid=3250160BA8A9CB9843493250160BA8A9CB984349&view=detail&FORM=VIRE) with the promise of ‘glorious mud’, a [gnu with very firm ideas about how its name should be pronounced](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqgPyqyh4X4), a [lovelorn armadillo on Salisbury Plain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5IUkIu1Zx4), and many more.

‘Let’s have the one about the [whale with the flu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5vnt-2mNpQ),’ I said. By the time we’d finished singing it, Arthur had swum up to help us sing the one about the hippopotamus. By the time we were onto the one about the [elephant faking amnesia](https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%27flanders+and+swann%27+elephant+youtube&view=detail&mid=638FF08B2DD6EACBF6A8638FF08B2DD6EACBF6A8&FORM=VIRE0&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3d%2527flanders%2band%2bswann%2527%2belephant%2byoutube%26qs%3dn%26form%3dQBRE%26sp%3d-1%26pq%3d%2527flanders%2band%2bswann%2527%2belephant%2byoutube%26sc%3d1-37%26sk%3d%26cvid%3d7023A1E0343B441DB136B1D5512FEE82) to avoid doing any work, Malvolio had arrived to point out that this song was in very bad taste, and offensive both to people who actually do have amnesia, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, _and_ to those who had been falsely accused of being insane because _somebody_ thought it was funny...

‘All right, all right, I’ve said I’m sorry!’ protested Andrew. ‘Anyway, it was Maria’s idea. My idea was to challenge you to a duel and then not bother to turn up, so you’d be standing around in a field on your own and feel a bit silly, but Maria thought it would be funnier to get you to do silly things in front of Olivia so she’d think you were mad. And I didn’t know Toby was going to decide to lock you up. I just went along with it so they’d go on being my friends.’

‘Come on, we’ve all been using that excuse for too long,’ I said. ‘I expect that king who wrote “Pastime With Good Company” probably said he’d only fallen into the habit of chopping his wives’ heads off by hanging out in bad company.’

‘At any rate, I’m surprised by _your_ lack of discrimination, Erik,’ said Malvolio. ‘If we have to have music at all, I’d have thought that, as a classical composer, your standards would be rather higher.’

‘Oh, I know I used to be a cultural snob,’ said Erik. ‘And when I’ve got a room to write in, I’ll write art music that nobody except me can understand, and I won’t even care if it’s never performed, as long as I can hear it in my head. But if my friends are happy to sing songs about elephants and hippopotami, I’m just happy that I now have friends. And I don’t think any of you could have been a worse influence on me than I was on myself when I spent too long in my own company. I can be as gentle as a lamb, now that I’ve got a flock to belong to.’


End file.
